It All Starts with Happily Ever After
by greenpineapple
Summary: Has Cas finally found his happy ending? The ending to The Girl of Nightmares had conflicted responses, well this story is for the disappointed readers and the ones who want even more closure. Cas/Anna


**Okay, first things first, no one and I mean NO ONE should read past this point if they haven't read Girl of Nightmares. You have been warned. **

**Okay, some more warnings, this starts out with a little, okay a lot of angst but trust me, it doesn't end that way.**

**Also, the POV changes midway through the story because it didn't sound right when it was in 1st person POV for the first part and 3rd person POV didn't work for the second part. So I compromised. This will make sense once you start to read.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own ****Anna Dressed in Blood**** or ****Girl Of Nightmares**** and Cas and his friends belong to Kendare Blake, not me. Any of the quotes or things that seem familiar are from the book and are property of Ms. Blake, I am not trying to pass her work for my own.**

**I swear, I'm done warning you now.**

**Please read and enjoy and if you cry, well that is kind of the point. Mwahaha. Tears of sadness and tears of happiness make us human, or at least humane (for you ghosts in the audience).**

**Okay, I'm done trying to be wise and yoda-like. Please read.**

It's time. He knew it as soon as he woke up that day. This was the day that he was going to die.

Theseus Cassio Lowood had led a long life. He had hunted hundreds of ghost and hadn't stopped until it was physically impossible. Although he never married, he lived vicariously through his best friends Carmel and Thomas Sabin who had three healthy kids. They were in their seventies and had more grandkids than they could have hoped for and Cas was all of the kiddies' favorite non-grandpa grandpa. He knew that they would all be sad, but their family would help them heal and they would live on for at least a little while longer. His past injuries and traumas had caught up to him, but they still had more time. This was okay with him, Cas had no big regrets… well except one.

No matter how many years went by, Cas could never forget his long lost love, Anna Korlov, and his one regret was not pushing hard enough to bring her back from Heaven. Yes, her life there was perfect; it was heaven for goodness sake! But his selfish side still pined for her dead majesty. But that voice was small compared to his happiness for her. But on this fateful day he grew worried.

If Anna's heaven was a beautiful lie, perfect down to the last detail, he had no doubts that his Heaven would include her. He still loved her. However, he didn't want some doppelganger; he wanted his Anna, the beautiful goddess of death. But she had forgotten which Cas was the real Cas when faced with him and the Heavenly Cas so was he going to forget his true love too? Well, he wasn't going to have to wait much longer to find out…

Cas was lying down on his bed and his eyesight was dimming. He had talked to Carmel and Thomas earlier, reminiscing on "the good old days: and then laughing at how old they sounded. Thomas laughed at how Cas' balding head wasn't helping him look any younger. They left on good terms and with smiles on their faces, even though their cheeks were covered in tears by the end (curse that telepathic communication).

Cas settled down on his comforter and held the worn newspaper article he had on Anna close to his heart. As his eyes closed for the last time on Earth he was at peace and left with a cocky smile on his face.

And then Theseus Cassio Lowood breathed his last breath.

Awareness came slowly to me, but I didn't open my eyes quite yet. Instead, I took a quiet survey of my surroundings, Brought To Me Live! by my other five senses. I was lying on some sort of cushiony surface; my best bet was a bed. Sunlight was turning the insides of my eyelids red but it wasn't an uncomfortable brightness, and I heard birdsong. A sweet warm wind blew from a window, probably the one that let the sunshine in, and the breeze mussed up my hair.

My hair, my full head of hair, my young springy hair that was attached to a face that felt like it was lacking the wrinkles that it had accumulated throughout the years. In fact, it seemed that all the years had dropped their wear! I felt my legs and back and arms not aching or throbbing, but almost itching with anticipation of moving and running.

Finally, my eyes opened and I found myself to indeed be lying on a bed, in a room that seemed familiar but new at the same time. In fact I felt a slight case of déjá vu for this entire place.

I stopped scrutinizing the light blue room I was housed in as I looked down at myself. I was decked out in an outfit that would have been wildly inappropriate on a seventy year old man, but on a teenage body, well, the jeans and weathered retro Ghostbusters t-shirt looked just right. Gone was my useless bag of elderly skin and bones, and back was the body that had faced down the Obeahman and fallen in love. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed I looked out of the window hesitantly. Since it was lacking a screen I stuck my head out of the window, like a dog with its head out of a car window. Looking directly below I saw flowers ringing the side of the white house I was in and then farther off was a forest of trees. I was sure that my eyes were twinkling in the sunlight as I surveyed the yard. Suddenly, a mist started to appear in the center of it.

And then the fog lifted and in its place stood two figures. One of which had chocolate brown hair that spiraled in the wind and a perfect white dress twirled around her ankles.

"Oh my God," I breathed in disbelief and then I was out the door of the room and down the stairs that on Earth had once carried my goddess down to me. I crossed the room where she had sacrificed herself for me and then I was standing in the doorway, speechless.

The girl who stuck me dumb was saying something to her companion, "Let's go back."

Then my tongue loosened and I yelled my love's name, "Anna!"

She turned and although my eyes lingered on her confused face, in my peripheral vision I finally noticed the face of her friend, it was me. Then it clicked; I was in Anna's heaven. Of course I was! I was in her heaven, because it was my heaven too. However, the other, younger Cas didn't know that, yet.

Anna's giggle and hesitant, "Cas?" snapped me out of my haze.

I paused to recall exactly what happened the first time; I couldn't change what happened now, because I knew that this moment was worth the wait.

"Come on," I called, "I thought you wanted to go for a walk."

Anna turned just like I knew she would, she was confused and conflicted but I knew this is what she wanted and what we both deserved.

"Let's go," I heard her say, "this place lies. For a minute I-I didn't remember where we were." Then she looked back at me and my heart soared. "For a minute I thought I was home," she finished quietly.

I wanted to sing and cry tears of pure happiness. "Because we ARE home," I thought so loudly I believed that she might actually hear but instead, "Come on, before we have to meet Thomas and Carmel," came out. It hit me that they were here as well, just as they should be.

I waited and relived the internal struggle that the past me was having and wished I could say something to him, me, which would ease his pain. I couldn't, because if I did, it would ruin this surprise, this perfect ending that was waiting for me and him, even if only I knew about it.

"Anna," the other Cas said before he kissed Anna with such tenderness and admiration and melancholy that again I had to bite my tongue in order to stop myself from crying.

"I have to go."

"What?" Anna asked, confused, but then the past me disappeared into the fog as if he had never been.

Finally, Anna turned to me. I ran to her and kissed her in the way that I hadn't been able to in over sixty years. My arms wrapped around her and the tears I had been holding in escaped, only to have Anna wipe them away.

She smiled and then kissed me back. That kiss told me that I was her love, her happy ending, no, her perfect new beginning. And I couldn't agree more.

**Did you like it?**

**I know that thinking of the ending this way doesn't completely work but I think that it would be perfect if that was how it worked.**

**I hope you could understand what was happening and if you were confused please say(type) something.**

**Please review!**

**Toodles,**

**-greenpineapple**


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